Parents arrested after 2-year-old ingests ‘rainbow fentanyl’ in Northern California, authorities say
SAN FRANCISCO — An infant born during a seven-month period where local law enforcement warned methamphetamine was infiltrating the Bay Area was given a drug that can cause a fatal overdose, U.S. prosecutors say.
Lester Poteet, 31, of Oakland faces drug trafficking, child endangerment and other charges after the young girl, who weighed just 6 pounds and is now 11 months old, ate a rainbow-colored powder, prosecutors say.
The baby’s mother was in a car crash last year that killed her boyfriend and Poteet had been arrested on outstanding warrants, said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag.
During a raid Thursday morning, Haag said the couple had been selling the powder online.
Haag said the powder can be fatal.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pennsylvania and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California did not immediately return requests for comment.
Poteet was arrested on a federal warrant in Pennsylvania in late December, after authorities there found nearly $13,000 in cash and a stash of heroin, methamphetamine and THC, Haag said.
He was also in touch with a man who had offered the drug on the dark web. In the past year, the man had been arrested for dealing drugs, child endangerment and drug possession in California, Oregon and Washington.
In a court document unsealed Thursday, prosecutors allege Poteet knew the powder contained drugs.
“According to her mother and others, the baby had been eating a substance in her mother’s stomach for seven months. This substance was found to be a combination of methamphetamine and ketamine,” the document said.
When the child ate the drug, she went into convulsions and collapsed, Haag said. She was rushed to Stanford Hospital in Oakland and then California Hospital Medical Center.
Her mother made two 911 calls and tried to convince Poteet to bring the baby